Mince Pies and some Special Thank You’s

I wasn’t planning to make mince pies this year. One of my excuses was quite simple: I was in Malta about a month ago and didn’t have the time to prepare any mincemeat. But J said it’s not Christmas without them so we made them…yesterday. I had some store-bought mincemeat in the pantry which I got this week, but ready made mincemeat is not the same as when you do it yourself. Most of the time it’s too sweet; that’s because sugar is cheaper than fruit! I know many of you would agree here. However for convenience’s sake the ones you get at the store are a blessing in disguise for those, who like me, were lazy enough not to have made any. The end result was good though, so I’m not complaining. I’m just thankful my lovely husband was here to help. He’s a wonderful cook anyway.

We used a sweet pastry here; in Malta it’s known as tal-figolli, used traditionally at Eastertime. It’s moist and soft and bakes well. You will have enough for 12 little pies here. We did decide though on making 24 next time round. The pastry becomes quite wet but that’s nothing to be worried about.

Before I give you this recipe for the pastry (which makes 12 pies) I really would like to thank Chef James Tanner for taking the time from his busy schedule to answer all my kitchen queries this year and for his Twitter RTs. His Chocolate and Nut Brownies have become quite a hit in this house! So thank you Mr. Tanner.

I would also like to send my thanks to my family and all those who sent me questions and kind messages or commented on my blog. You make it all worthwhile. Last but not least, I would also like to thank J for testing all the recipes and giving me his honest feedback on every one. Thank you! So here we go:

• 240g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 60g butter, unsalted
• 60g vegetable shortening/vegetable fat (Trex in the UK)
• 90g sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 410g mincemeat (approx. 2 teaspoons filling for each pie)

1. Preheat the oven at 180ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4.
2. In a large bowl, sift the flour and baking powder, add the sugar, and rub the butter completely into the flour until you get a breadcrumb-like consistency. Add the beaten egg, lemon zest and juice, and the vanilla extract to the dry ingredients and mix everything well using your hands. Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and put it in the fridge for about 40 minutes. This will make it crunchy later and easier to handle when rolling it out.
3. Roll out the pastry and use a cookie cutter slightly larger than the size of your moulds. Grease the moulds well and fit a pastry circle in each mould. Put approximately 2 teaspoons of mincemeat in each pastry case and top each pie with smaller size pastry circles. You could top them with any shape you like really…stars, criss-cross etc.
4. Brush the tops with a mixture of half a teaspoon of sugar dissolved in a few drops of water, and use a sharp knife to cut a small cross on each top, to avoid any unpleasant surprises in the oven!!
5. Bake for around 20 to 25 minutes until the little babies turn nice and golden. Once cooled you can sprinkle them with some icing sugar. Your call.Enjoy and Happy Christmas to all!

   Rob x

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Christmas Meals (3): Extra Rich Christmas Gingerbread

This should come with the following disclaimer: boy, is this rich! You’ll see that from the ingredients, but it does make a lovely thing to have on hand at Christmastime for friends and family who might drop in for a coffee at home. (Make that Irish, won’t you?!) I guess one advantage of having so much sugar in one cake is that it will remain moist for two weeks give or take, stored in a cool place and covered with kitchen foil or wrapped in greaseproof parchment. The taste of ginger is not so prominent, so it could potentially be devoured by almost everyone. Also you won’t need to take a large piece either. This recipe is taken from Nigella Christmas, with just small changes just because I didn’t have some specific ingredients. It really doesn’t need any tweaking. It’s classic and simple, and all you need is some icing sugar to make it look pretty.

You will need:

• 150g butter, unsalted
• 200g golden syrup
• 200g molasses or black treacle
• 125g dark brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon whole cloves, crushed
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (or baking soda), dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water
• 250ml semi-skimmed milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 300g plain flour

Grease a square cake tin with some butter or margerine and line the bottom and sides with greaseproof paper or kitchen foil. If you are using the latter, make sure to grease it too. Make sure you have some extra paper overlapping at the sides so that you can lift it up easily from the tin later. Preheat the oven to 175ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4.

Melt the butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, treacle, ginger, cinnamon and crushed cloves in a saucepan over medium heat. When these are melted, switch the heat off immediately or take it off the heat if you use an electric hob.

Add the milk, eggs and bicarbonate of soda (remember: dissolved in water) into the melted ingredients.

Put the plain flour in a large bowl and add the liquid mixture, and beat in well until combined. The batter is very liquidy which will make the cake extremely sticky, but that’s the fun of it really!

Pour the batter into the lined and greased tin and bake for around 40-50 minutes. Always keep an eye on it. Mine was ready in 40 but it depends on the oven. The cake will rise and it will carry on cooking for a while even while it cools.

Let the gingerbread cool in the tin for a while, before removing it altogether on a serving dish. Decorate with some icing sugar if you wish. Happy times indeed!

Happy Christmas!

Rob x

Christmas Meals (1): Ham

This year something happened: I’ve been immersing myself in the Christmas spirit way ahead of time. This isn’t normal. Usually I say to myself that October (or even November) is really too early to start thinking about Christmas. This time round I’ve been trying out recipes and shopping for Christmas ingredients from last month (so not *too* early) and I’ve been really enjoying every minute of it. So I have ditched the idea of overcomplicating things so I’m going with manageable cooking this year. It will still be somewhat tiring, but I need not stress about the food because I will either prepare it beforehand, or it will be easy peasy stuff on the day itself. I will cook and still enjoy the festivites. Yay! I’ve also sorted out quick meals for the run-up; uncomplicated food which can be prepared days ahead and heated for lunch or supper. Weatherwise they’re saying that it’s not going to be that cold either, so we will manage a nice afternoon walk too. What more can I ever wish for?

So for an easy take on Christmas lunch, I used Nigella as my muse and tried a recipe for ham. One thing is true here: there are no frills but it will still be a lovely sight on your table and it will stretch for extra guests. The size of the joint will depend on how many people you want to feed, but I will give you what I used for 6 people as a rough guide. With this recipe you will be able to roast your potatoes* (preferably par boiled beforehand) in the same roasting pan. I also added some sliced apples about which I will tell you later. (In between helpings it is important not to let the gammon dry out. All you need to do is to immerse it again in the stock once you have carved some of it.) So without further ado, here we go.

• 1.5 kg joint of gammon, unsmoked & boneless
• 1 large onion, cut in half or quartered
• 2 carrots, whole or cut in half
• 1 stick celery, cut in half
• 1 leek, cut in half
• a handful of whole peppercorns
• 2 star anise
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 2 teaspoons dried rosemary
• around 2 litres of chicken stock or enough to cover the ham and vegetables

For the glaze you need:

• either 250g ginger preserve or marmalade
• 2 tablespoons hot English mustard
• 100g soft dark brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves (you can use whole cloves here too)

For roasting together with the ham you will need:

• Par boiled potatoes, around 16 small ones or 8 large ones cut into quarters
• 6-8 apples, sliced not too thinly

Put the gammon in a large pan with the vegetables, peppercorns and dried herbs and pour enough stock to cover everything. Don’t be afraid to use some extra if you have some left. It won’t do any harm. Turn on the hob and leave it to boil. Turn the gas to a medium/low heat and leave it to simmer away; for how long depends on the size of the gammon. Calculate 30 minutes for every 500g. (If you have a thermometer, the temperature should read 71ºC.)

In the meantime line a roasting pan with kitchen foil, even if it is non-stick. Believe me, you”ll thank your lucky stars later, because you’ll have less cleaning! Also preheat your oven to 180ºC/370ºF/Gas mark 7.

Prepare the glaze by placing the ginger preserve or marmalade, mustard, sugar and cloves in a measuring jug and mix well. Leave it to stand and give it another mix before covering the ham.

When the ham has cooked completely in the stock, carefully lift it out of the liquid and place it in the roasting pan, together with some par boiled potatoes cut into quarters and around 6 raw apples sliced into not-so-thick slices. Everything has to fit snuggly into the pan to avoid burning.

Cover the ham with all the glaze and use any extra to cover the potatoes and apples. Bake for around 20 minutes until the ham turns golden. Carve around 150g per person and serve with the apples and potatoes, and with some festive couscous. (The recipe is coming right up!)

Happy Christmas!

Rob x

Boozy Brownies

Some months ago I was going through my pantry and noticed that I had a whole packet of unopened hazelnuts. That’s very me unfortunately. It’s no news that sometimes I tend to buy food stuffs without really planning ahead. I’m improving though…Honest! Solution: Twitter and the lovely James Tanner. James kindly sent me a link to his recipe for Chocolate Nut Brownies. I changed it slightly because I had to work with what I had in the pantry at the time but the result was fantastic all the same. I’m no expert when it comes to alcohol so I just put my hand in the drinks cabinet and grabbed the first thing that was in there. That turned out to be a bottle of Islay, which was a good choice. Also I used 300g of hazelnuts instead of the selection which James uses because that’s all I had. Anything you use will be great anyhow: one of the beauties of these rich chocolate babies. You will love them. James, thanks again for this recipe. It was a hit.

• 560g dark chocolate, cut into small chunks
• 330g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 2 shots Islay whiskey (or water)
• 1 tablespoon of coffee granules/or a shot of espresso
• 5 large eggs
• 330g golden caster sugar
• 175g plain flour, sifted
• 300g toasted hazelnuts

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas mark 4, and line a 2 inch deep, 12 inch square baking tin with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a small bowl over a pan of simmering water, and make sure that the water doesn’t touch the base of the bowl. Stir occasionally.

In another heavy-based pan, gently heat the whiskey (or water) together with the coffee granules until these dissolve.

With an electric whisk, beat the eggs and the sugar in a medium bowl, also over a pan of simmering water, until the double in volume. This is called a Sabayon or Zabaglione. It should turn light and pale. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Slowly fold in the melted chocolate mixture into the Sabayon. Be gentle so you retain all that lovely airy texture. Now mix in the hazelnuts.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes. Leave to cool slightly and cut into squares.

Note: If you don’t have an electric hand whisk you can still make these brownies but it will take *a lot* of whisking. But it’s not impossible. Take it from me – I tried and tested it!

Enjoy!

Rob x.

Cookies with Cranberries and White Chocolate

So during the last few weeks I have had one main aim in life you might say, i.e. to use up all the food in my fridge and pantry. It’s the classic situation really, I’m always tempted to purchase one or two ingredients for a particular recipe. Then I end up with a gazillion packets of dried fruit and nuts. Now one thing which I absolutely hate is to throw away food. When it’s bad there’s no other option of course, but when it’s good then the possibilities are endless…well, that’s what I keep telling myself…and it’s true.

There’s no doubt that these cookies are delicious, if you like cranberries and white chocolate that is. I know that not everyone likes white chocolate, but I guess it would be easy to use milk or dark chocolate instead. This recipe comes from Nigella’s Christmas. I have thought about waiting until the holidays to include these lovely little bites here, but I couldn’t wait that long and really you can make them any time you want. (White chocolate and cranberries remind me of Christmas though.) I made these three times and when it comes to any kind of cookie it’s always a party especially for J (and if you know him then that goes without saying)!

Some notes before you start: the mixture yields around 30 small cookies or 15 large ones, depending what you prefer. I made the latter. No news there I’m sure! Also you could use less chocolate if you like, as I did the first time I made them. However it’s tricky to mess about with an already good recipe. You could leave out the salt though, which I did the third time round.

You’ll need:

• 150g plain flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt (optional)
• 75g rolled oats (not instant)
• 125g butter, softened
• 75g dark brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 75g dried cranberries
• 50g pecans, roughly chopped (works also with walnuts)
• 150g white chocolate chips or chunks

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC/Gas Mark 4 and line a baking tray with baking paper.
2. Place the flour, baking powder, salt and oats in a large mixing bowl.
3. In a medium-sized bowl place the soft butter and sugar and beat until light and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix well.
4. To the above mixture add all the ingredients in the large bowl, then fold in the dried cranberries, nuts and chocolate chunks.
5. Using your hands roll the dough into roughly golf ball size and place them on the baking sheet. (You will need more than one tray to make the cookies in two or more batches). Push them down with a fork if you prefer.
6. Bake the cookie dough for 15 minutes, and when done they will be too soft to lift from the tray so let them cool for around 5-10 minutes after taking them out of the oven. Then leave them to cool on a wire rack.

As in the previous cookie recipe, you can freeze the dough for up to three months so if you’re serving these at a party you can prepare them way ahead of time and bake them two days before. They are super easy to make so why don’t you give them a go?

Enjoy!

Rob x